I was sent this link and told not to use Google, Yahoo, or AOL search engines again unless I didn't care about my privacy.

So I followed the link and here's what it says:

Quote:

Ixquick Protects Your Privacy !

The only search engine that does not record your IP address.

Your privacy is under attack !Every time you use a regular search engine, your search data are recorded.

Your search terms, the time of your visit, the links you choose, your IP address and your User ID cookies all get stored in a database.

The identity profiles that can be constructed from this cloud of information represent modern day gold for marketers.

But government officials, hackers and even criminals also have an interest in getting their hands on your personal search data.

And sooner or later they will...

What could happen ?
Consider the following story:

In August 2006, the online world was jarred by the AOL privacy scandal:
AOL released three months' worth of aggregated search data from 650,000 of its users, publishing all the details in an online database. This database is still searchable. It is an absolute eye-opener to see the potential for privacy nightmares.

Shocked ? You are not alone.

When we search, we share our most private thoughts with our computers.
These private thoughts should be safe.

I don't think this is as big of an issue as people are making it out to be.

Any government site you click on will likely record your IP and such...but not much else. If you're using a Government computer, then they are storing your search cookies and such.

Do Search Engines record your information? It's possible. It's also not very expedient. That's a lot of information to tally. I'm a Network Admin (though mostly still in training) at work...and trying to sift through the information for one day for the people just in our building is a lot of stuff to go through.

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If you take the "U" out of "STUD", you get STD. I'm just saying.

Do Search Engines record your information? It's possible. It's also not very expedient. That's a lot of information to tally. I'm a Network Admin (though mostly still in training) at work...and trying to sift through the information for one day for the people just in our building is a lot of stuff to go through.

Agreed. I am also a systems admin and we use Websense to track the Internet activity of our employees (about 450 at the corporate campus I work at) as well, and it's a massive amount of info to go through as far as an employee's complete browsing history is concerned. Further, only an authorized HR person can request to see an employee's "history," (not even an employee's supervisor can request it directly) and we have to limit report queries to site types visited as opposed to sites actually visited just to make the information usable, otherwise the report for one employee can be literally hundreds to thousands of pages for just a 2-3 month timeframe.

I tend not to worry about it too much, as I'm super cautious with regard to the websites I visit and what info I give them. Every time I purchase something online, first, I make sure it is a SECURE website, regularly purchase with PayPal, and as soon as the transaction is complete, I erase the history. I also clear my cache daily. I got burned about 6 years ago by not purchasing a t-shirt that I wanted on a secure website and I learned my lesson the hard way.